1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system for conducting the identification and quantification of micro-organisms, e.g., bacteria in urine samples. More particularly, the invention relates to a system for identifying bacteria in urine samples which includes: 1) a disposable cartridge or holder for holding disposable components including a centrifuge tube, two pipette tips with a different volume capacity, and an optical cup or cuvette; 2) a sample processor for processing or preparing the urine samples; and 3) an optical analyzer for analyzing the processed urine samples. The disposable cartridge with its four components is used in the sample processor and the optical cup or cuvette in particular is used in the optical analyzer.
2. Description of Related Art
In general, current-day practice for identifying micro-organisms, e.g., bacteria in urine samples involves a complex, lengthy and expensive process for identifying and specifying micro-organisms in microbiology labs. In the current process, the samples are accepted into the lab. These specimens are then sorted and labeled and then they are inoculated onto blood agar medium using sterilized loop. The specimens are then inserted into a dedicated incubator for a 24-hour period. A day later, the lab technicians screen the specimens for positive and negative cultures. In general, most of the cultures are negative and they are manually reported. The organisms for the positive cultures are isolated and suspended in a biochemical fluid. This involves suspension, dilution, vortexing and turbidity measurements resulting in biochemical waste products. The cultures are then subjected to a species identification and antibiotics susceptibility testing exposing the suspensions to multiple reagents. After another 6 to 24-hour incubation period, the findings are interpreted and reported by lab technicians. This entire process generally takes 11 steps and 50 hours to obtain specimen results and the process is labor intensive.
Commonly owned U.S. Publication No. US 2007/0037135 A1, the contents of which are herein incorporated by reference, discloses a system for identifying and quantification of a biological sample suspended in a liquid. Paragraph [0038] of this publication states that sample cuvettes are used. These cuvettes are said to be well known in the art and are typically square or rectangular in shape (having a well area to contain the sample) and are made of a transparent material such as glass or a polymeric material.
There is a need, therefore, particularly for species identification of the above lab procedure to provide a more efficient, and less time consuming process which requires less labor.